Time for schools to make all pupils feel welcome

The start of the school year has seen a number of schools countrywide make headlines for all the wrong reasons. In Schweizer-Reneke in the North West and Matatiele in our province, black and white pupils began their school careers separated, supposedly on the basis of their home language, a practice that has no educational justification and amounts to the very opposite of building one nation.

In this province, along with the usual disheartening reports of overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated infrastructure, we have learnt of children being denied their right to education because their parents have not paid mandatory “donations”, supplied toilet paper and the like.

The education authorities have also had to intervene at schools where principals withheld pupils’ results because of outstanding fees.

The principal has been suspended at Johannesburg’s illustrious Roedean, after racial tensions were exacerbated by him announcing the departure of one of few black teachers at the school. A similar situation previously occurred at another top South African school, Rustenburg Girls Junior, in Cape Town’s leafy suburbia.

And then we’ve seen the ridiculous – an eight-yearold girl reduced to a forlorn figure, excluded from school apparently because her hair, while neat, remains “natural” rather than straightened.

What all of this boils down to is that a quarter of a century of democracy seems to have had little impact.

Many schools effectively remain the products of colonisation. They are insensitive to issues of poverty. They are unable to cope with integrating indigenous language speakers or accommodating ethnic hair in the classroom – or, for that matter, black teachers in the staffroom.

This situation is both unhealthy and bizarre but it is probably indicative of the shallow nature of much of the transformation that has so far taken place in South African society. Perhaps the authorities should investigate what programmes have been used to good effect to tackle similar problems elsewhere in the world.

It is high time we saw meaningful attitudinal change that would allow all South Africa’s children to feel they truly belong at all South African schools.

What all of this boils down to is that a quarter of a century of democracy seems to have had little impact